Love, Laughter, and Happily Ever Afters Collection (Eight Fun, Romantic Novels by Eight Bestselling Authors)

by Violet Duke

  She was going to itch for the rest of her life after he went back to Chicago.

  “Hold still,” he whispered against the back of her hair.

  He ran a large palm down the side of her hip and thigh and brought her leg up and back to drape over his hip behind her. He slid his fingers forward then, stroking over her stomach, lower, pressing against her mound, circling her clit and slipping into the hot wetness that seemed to be constant for him.

  Two fingers slid deep and she gasped as his thumb stroked over her clit at the same time.

  “Mason,” she choked.

  “I’ll never get enough of you,” he murmured, kissing her hair, her shoulder.

  She knew the feeling. But she couldn’t think like that. Hearing him say it was almost painful. She needed to keep him from talking, from saying all the things she yearned to hear—like how they could work it out, how they could be together, how his hands would be the only ones to ever touch her like this again.

  “Mason, I want—”

  He thrust his fingers deeper and she forgot that she wanted anything else.

  “Reach a condom,” he urged.

  He’d brought several she’d learned, so she reached for the pants that lay on the floor between the couch and coffee table and pulled one out. “I can’t reach to put it on you.” He had her firmly pinned right where she was.

  “I’ve got it.”

  He slipped his fingers from her, which made her want to whimper from the loss. Stupid. Dangerous. Bad.

  A moment later, he lifted her thigh farther and she felt the tip of him at her entrance. Instinctively, she arched her back and he pressed forward, sliding fully, thickly into her.

  They moaned together.

  His hand returned to her, stroking her clit as he moved behind her. She had less leverage in this position, but Mason was doing fine, pumping deep, long and slow.

  She was quickly breathing hard, feeling the coil of desire wind tighter, as if she was reaching for something just beyond her, something that only Mason could provide.

  “I love you, Ad,” he said gruffly as he thrust deep.

  And she shattered.

  Her orgasm, her heart, her resistance.

  “YOU’RE WHAT?” LAUREN demanded as Mason dodged two kids on bikes on the sidewalk on his way from Adrianne’s to the café. It was a beautiful morning.

  “Staying in Sapphire Falls. I’m in love.” He said it with a big grin even though she couldn’t see it over the phone.

  “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Lauren muttered.

  He grimaced as he heard a crash on Lauren’s end of the phone and the expletive that followed. “What are you doing?”

  “Dropping a pan of brownies on my ceramic tile floor.”

  “You okay?”

  “Oh, sure, I’m great. I send you off to a reunion you didn’t even want to go to so I could have a romantic weekend with Alex. And you end up in love and I get dumped. And I now have to go to the store for more brownie mix. Because I am going to eat brownies. But I’m definitely great.”

  Lauren never ate sweets. Unless she was upset. Generally, she was upset about something that happened in the lab or with their contracts and he could easily get her through that.

  Damn. “You and Alex broke up?”

  “Yes, she dumped me. Because my idea of having a life outside of work wasn’t enough. She didn’t want to be part of my life. She wanted to be my whole life.”

  Mason wasn’t sure what to say here. He was the best friend, so he knew it was his job to say something comforting, but Lauren was always the one to break up with her boy-and girlfriends. That generally required taking her out for a drink and telling her she was right to do it. This was new territory. He couldn’t remember a time she’d been dumped.

  “I thought this weekend…the point…” He really didn’t know what to say.

  “The point was to show Alex I cared about our relationship, that I was willing to give her some time, focus on her, make her a priority. But as soon as I said something about Haiti, she freaked. She wanted me to give everything up. She wanted me to get a normal job.”

  Mason frowned. “A normal job like what?”

  Lauren sighed. “Hell if I know. A science teacher, I guess, or a researcher in a lab where I can go home at five o’clock and have Christmas off.”

  It was quite clear Alex had no idea what she was talking about. Dr. Lauren Davis couldn’t work a normal job. There were plenty of talented people who could do those normal jobs extremely well. Lauren needed to do more than that. She was needed for innovative things, things that those science teachers would be talking to their students about, things that didn’t follow a clock or a calendar…things like they did together.

  “That’s ridiculous,” Mason said.

  “But it’s reality,” she returned. “Most people don’t understand what we do, and they sure aren’t going to understand how much we do it. If we want to be in love with normal people we have to have more normal lives.”

  He could hear scraping sounds that indicated Lauren was cleaning up her brownie mess while she talked to him.

  “I don’t think that’s true,” Mason argued. “Adrianne—”

  “This is your fault anyway.”

  “My fault?” Mason repeated. “I left town when you asked me to so you could be with her.”

  “I mean all this craziness that I’m choosing over her. We can’t stop now. The stuff we’re doing at work is bigger than both of us, thanks to you being brilliant and stuff.”

  “Have you been drinking?” he asked.

  “No, dammit.” She took a deep breath. “Okay, I put some vodka in my orange juice this morning. But that’s not why I’m saying this. Mason, we’re supposed to be in Haiti in two weeks for the preliminary visit. We’re supposed to be in DC next week. I dumped Alex for this.”

  He heard a thump on her end of the phone.

  “I thought Alex dumped you.”

  “Alex dumped me because I said I was going to Haiti instead of staying here with her. So you are not staying in Sapphire Falls.”

  “This is different. Adrianne is—”

  “I get it,” Lauren said. “I do. She’s hot, right?”

  “Yes. She’s…” Mason trailed off, at a loss for the perfect way to describe Adrianne. Beautiful wasn’t enough. The way he felt about her was so much more than how she looked.

  “I know,” Lauren said. “The lips, the breasts, her smell, her skin, her hair…I get it. But that heat that fast doesn’t make sense. What about compatibility? What about what we—you—have in common? How can I—you—keep her interested when I—I mean you—are sitting on the couch watching Dancing with the Stars and all you can think is how much you could be getting done at work instead?”

  Mason’s knew his mouth was hanging open in shock. Lauren didn’t rant and rave like that. She sounded…crazy. She sounded…

  “Are you crying?” he demanded.

  She distinctly sniffed. “No.”

  He really had no idea what to say now. Lauren didn’t cry. She yelled sometimes. She slammed doors. She ate brownies. But she never cried. And she’d never been crazy about anyone like she was about Alex. Alex was different. With Alex, Lauren had been distracted, spontaneous…different. It had been fast and hot and crazy.

  Like him and Adrianne.

  He sighed. “Maybe you should just watch the show, Lauren. If that’s what she wants, do it.”

  “I’m still not there though. I’m still thinking about other things.”

  “Then maybe,” he said ca
refully. “She wasn’t the right one.” He hesitated with what he was about to say. “Adrianne gets it.”

  “Gets what?”

  “What we do. Why we do it.” He paused. “Who I am.” Lauren didn’t answer right away.

  “Does she?” she finally asked.

  “Yes. And she likes it. Admires it.” She let him write work notes on her.

  “Ah.” Lauren’s tone had totally changed. “She likes you.”

  “She likes me,” he agreed.

  He knew that Lauren understood what he was talking about and didn’t feel pathetic about it. She was almost the only one who could really know him without him feeling vulnerable. Almost the only one. There was another woman, a short blond with the sweetest mouth, who he was more than willing to have as close as possible.

  “Of course she likes you.”

  “Don’t say it like that.”

  Lauren sighed.

  Lauren knew women liked him. But not the real him. He was great at putting on the act. He was suave, polished, sexy, sure of himself. As far as they were concerned. But they didn’t really know him. When conversation turned to fertilizer and irrigation, most lost interest, if they didn’t just outright think he was weird. So he kept it superficial. They talked about social issues, politics, his travels, their work.

  But Adrianne knew him. Knew about him, even some of his past here in Sapphire Falls. And liked him. Wanted him.

  He’d left her sleeping this morning. She was probably going to be sore when she got up this morning, he thought with a grin. He’d been unable to keep from waking her every few hours throughout the night. At least when she wasn’t wakening him.

  They’d made love repeatedly in several variations, each more incredible and better than the last. Especially after he told her he loved her. She hadn’t repeated it, but he could feel it—stronger every time.

  “You’ll see,” Mason said gently. “It’s going to be fine.”

  “This is all my fault,” Lauren said. Something clattered on her end of the phone. “I made you go to Sapphire Falls. I made you so attractive that Adrianne couldn’t resist. I told you that something had to be more important than work. But don’t listen to me, Mason. Because of Alex, I’ve been distracted and leaving work early instead of focusing on the stuff for Haiti. And now she’s gone and all of that is wasted time. But none of the time we’ve spent on Haiti is wasted. Those people need us. Those people will appreciate us. They deserve us. Hot girls who make us think about nipple clamps and bubble baths and being in love forever and ever do not deserve us.”

  Mason’s eyes were wide. He wasn’t sure what he was more stunned by—Lauren’s continued ranting, his mental picture of Alex and nipple clamps, or the fact that his best friend really believed that Adrianne was bad for him.

  Damn.

  None of that was good.

  “Lauren, calm down. Everything is going to be fine—”

  “Are you coming home?”

  “I’ll have to make a trip eventually. I’ll have to figure this DC meeting out.”

  He thought about suggesting Lauren go without him. But the truth was she couldn’t. She could explain everything, present everything, make the case. But the vice president was upset with Mason. Mason had to deliver the presentation and make nice. Not that he exactly cared if the vice president liked him or was happy with him, but it would undoubtedly make things easier in the future when he and Lauren wanted to work overseas. They could do what they wanted without the vice president’s blessing, but it would be easier with it.

  Dammit.

  “I was thinking we could do a conference call—”

  “Oh, sure. A conference call. Why didn’t I think of that?” Lauren asked with sudden brightness. “I think that’s a fantastic plan.”

  “You do?”

  “Hell no. That idea sucks.”

  “Why? They’ll get the info they need. I’ll even apologize to Vice President Forrester.”

  “You’re seriously telling me that you’re going to ask the vice president of the United States to have a conference call with you so you can stay in Hicksville for a fling.”

  “She’s not a fling,” he said stubbornly. “She’s the one. You’ll like her. She’s—”

  “A distraction you, we, don’t need.”

  He arrived at the café. “I have a meeting. I have to go.” He could have told her the guys had invited him to coffee, but she would have thought he was making it up.

  “Mason,” Lauren said quickly. “I don’t lie to you, right?”

  “Right,” he said with some reservation.

  “Then believe me when I say that if you are not on a flight to Chicago by tomorrow morning, I will do whatever I have to do to save you from yourself.”

  That didn’t sound good at all.

  “I don’t—” he started.

  “Do not make me come to Sapphire Falls.”

  “I’ll have to call you later.”

  “Sure, you do that,” she said. “Whenever you get a minute. No big deal. I’ll go ahead and do all of our work for the DC meeting without you and—”

  He hung up.

  He’d never, ever hung up on Lauren before. But she was pushy and bossy and had been dumped and was blaming him—at least indirectly—so there wasn’t really anything good to come out of further conversation at the moment.

  A minute later, he had to silence his phone as he stepped into the diner. Lauren could leave all her thoughts and opinions about all of it on his voice mail. Which he was sure she would.

  “Mason!”

  Drew’s enthusiastic greeting made him smile in spite of himself. Maybe they were all faking it to make him feel good. But maybe they found him interesting. He was going to stay carefully away from the topic of his work and concentrate on things they cared about—the Sapphire Falls high school football team, the University of Nebraska’s football team and the Kansas City Chiefs football team.

  All things he’d spent time researching on Adrianne’s computer that morning.

  “’Morning.” He took the chair across from Tim. “I see the Huskers have a great new running back from Texas.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “THIS IS SO GREAT.”

  Adrianne dropped her head onto her hands. “No, Phoebe, this is not great.”

  “How is you falling in love with a great guy not great?”

  Adrianne’s head whipped up. “What?”

  Phoebe grinned and lifted the takeout coffee cup she’d brought with her knowing, she claimed, that Adrianne would be too tired to get up and make anything. She’d brought Adrianne tea too.

  She was tired. No doubt about it. And sore. But if she were given the chance to repeat the night, she wouldn’t change a thing. Except for Mason’s declaration of staying in town. And she wouldn’t have wasted even the time she had sleeping. He was leaving Monday—he was—and she wanted to spend as much time with him as possible until then.

  Until she had to swear him off with the carrot cake and drinking and staying up too late and her Blackberry and…all the other things that she’d loved and been addicted to.

  “You’ve never been in love before?” Phoebe asked, reaching for one of the sugar packets she’d brought along as well.

  “I’ve…” Adrianne thought about it. Besides one college boyfriend, she couldn’t honestly say she’d been in love. And that had been first love, kid stuff. Certainly, she’d never felt the way she did about Mason.

  With a groan, she dropped her head back to her hands. “This is terri
ble.”

  Now not only did she know he couldn’t stay, and she was going to be sad to see him go, it really was going to break her heart.

  Dammit.

  “How did this happen?”

  “He came to town, you danced with him and the rest is the story you’ll tell your grandkids.”

  “Stop it.” Adrianne lifted her head again. “Seriously. This can’t happen.”

  “It already did.”

  “Then I have to keep it from…continuing. Even if he has some feelings for me, he can’t stay.”

  Phoebe didn’t look convinced.

  Adrianne tried harder. “He’s wrapped up in everything, being a part of the crowd, the phenomenal sex, the idea that the in crowd wants him for something. It won’t last. It’s not real.”

  Phoebe added another sugar packet and stirred her coffee. “I probably shouldn’t say anything. I’ll make you mad. Again.”

  “If you’re referring to what you said about me not being willing to fight for him, then yes, please don’t say anything,” Adrianne said. Phoebe was right. That was the sucky part. She didn’t want to have to fight. She was tired of fighting. She didn’t want to have to try. She wanted easy, simple, angst-free.

  “I’m thinking that if the guy you’re in love with isn’t enough to make you want to take a risk then I don’t know what will be. I worry about you.”

  Adrianne swallowed against the lump in her throat. “I’m fine.”

  “Well, at least you’re getting laid. That’s more than I can say.”

  That simple reminder was enough to make liquid heat rush through Adrianne’s body.

  Phoebe must have seen something in her face because she whistled. “Wow, it must have been good.”

  It had been. It had been enough to ruin her forever for other men. It had been enough to make her want to beg him to stay.